WORK is due to begin on developing a strategy for residents’ priorities for emergency services in Cumbria over the next four years, it has been revealed.

David Allen, the county’s first Labour police, fire and crime commissioner, was speaking to members of the police, fire and crime panel at Allerdale House in Workington on Monday (October 14).

He was giving an update following the public consultation on a proposed Police, Fire and Crime Plan 2024-28 to seek people’s views on the crime and community safety issues which present the biggest concern in their local area.

The commissioner said the plan would focus on long term initiatives in the areas of crime and fire and his priority would be for the services to remain as the best in the country.

Members were told that the priorities which had been identified as being:

Antisocial behaviour (specifically nuisance and environmental);

Antisocial driving (including speeding and careless driving);

Drugs (both taking and dealing);

Rural crime (crimes connected with theft of plant machinery, livestock, metal, oil and hare coursing.

Committee chairman councillor Bill McEwan (Ormsgill and Parkside, Labour), said a problem area of anti-social driving was “kids on motorbikes” in Barrow-in-Furness and added: “There must be a way that we can catch them.”

Gill Shearer, the chief executive of the office of the police, fire and crime commissioner, said the neighbourhood policing teams were aware of the issue and Cllr McEwan said: “Not only are they a danger to themselves but they are a danger to the public.”

Councillor Bob Kelly (Millom, Labour) said one of the most annoying was the noise emanating from the vehicles with their “souped up engines” and he asked if that was classed as antisocial driving to which he was told that it did.

Councillor Carni McCarron-Holmes (Maryport North, Labour) was concerned about the issue of the “plethora” of Airbnb properties with multiple occupants and asked if the fire and rescue service did checks to make sure the information on the number of people who could be living there was up to date and she was reassured that this was the case.

Councillor Tim Pickstone (Longtown, Lib Dems) said that his impression was that online crime was on the rise and asked what police were doing to tackle it?

Ms Shearer said in the first instance people should do what they could to protect themselves, such as having secure passwords, and there were monthly targets in areas such as fraud. She added: “There’s lots more we can do.” And Mr Allen said: “There’s got to be a local element.”

Cllr Pickstone said that a priority should be protecting “vulnerable communities” and added: “There’s no mention of hate crime.”

Ms Shearer said workshops and training was available and that hate crime “will be part of the action plan”.

Councillor Mike Johnson (Thursby, Conservative) said that part of Mr Allen’s election manifesto was that there would be a named community beat officer (CBO) in each area and he asked how many there were.

Mr Allen said he hoped to achieve this by the middle of next month.

It was recommended that members note the outcomes of the public and partner consultation and the timescales for publication of the Police, Fire and Crime Plan and to provides comments on the plan with a written response which was agreed.